Month: February 2014

One of the things I love the most about our swim club is they never cancel practice. The club we swam for a few years ago practices in a bubble. They cancelled practice for thunder, lightening, wind, ice and snow. I like a routine and this did not work for me.

DC metro got a pretty decent snow last week and practice was cancelled Thursday and Friday. Unfortunate for my kids – I hate snow. I’m not talking dislike, I am miserable when it snows. I get offended when it touches me.

Sarah and Sophie’s coach asked that they go make a snowman and submit a photo. He was going to have a contest for the best snowman. I discouraged them from doing it. An hour in the snow to me represents a load of laundry and a mopping of the entire first floor. I bribed them with Starbucks to skip it. In the end, Sarah was persistent and I agreed to let them do it if they were quick.

They came up with this:

I don’t know yet if we won. I somehow suspect they aren’t the only swimmers to do this. And yes, they are wearing fins. At least I didn’t have to do laundry. We need to move somewhere warm. I want a pool in my backyard – not this…

Grace has finally “manned” up and decided to move up to the National Training Group in the spring. She has spent most of this season on the fence as to where she wanted to go. She is very lucky to be in a position to decide. A lot of kids have to spend time in Advanced Seniors before moving up – moving to NTG’s the spring prior to your freshman year in high school is a pretty big deal. Grace was the only one who thought going to Advanced Seniors was a good idea.

And it turns out she had very good reason for thinking this.

Her current coaches asked to have a meeting with us this past weekend, to discuss the next few weeks, a critical time in her training, the spring Championship meet is just around the corner. They asked that both mom and dad attend.

I’m a bit of a talker and I like to control conversations. It was very clear from the get go that this wasn’t going to happen today. As a matter of fact, the few things I did attempt to add were really pointless. I could have played on my phone. Sometimes my husband surprises me. He has been a swimmer his whole life yet is really hands off with their swimming. I’m the one who goes to everything. I thought I knew everything.

What I really know are the logistics of the sport. Where we need to go, what we need to take and what time we need to be there. Despite the fact that I go to every meet and every practice, I had no idea Grace was swimming scared. After the last meet I just thought she was swimming bad. Turns out she is scared and running away from the very thing that scares her the most. Success. She believes it is easier to fail and say she knew it all along than it is to say I’m going to succeed. And maybe fail. Between the coaches and dad, they were able to convince her that she needed to get her “head out of her ass” and she needed to believe in herself. Me? I just sat there.

I really don’t care that I didn’t have anything productive to add to the meeting. Or that I really don’t know anything about swimming. All three of my girls know that they have two parents who support them 100%. I’m the tough one when it comes to practice. They go and it isn’t up for debate. I expect them to work hard and be polite to the coaches. My husband has the upper hand in pushing them to succeed at their goals. In the end, they need both. They also know we love them unconditionally and our expectations never exceed reality.

I’m paying attention though. I have known from the beginning of the season that Grace was afraid to go into the NTG’s. I didn’t know why but now I do. As the logistics coordinator I’m now onto her – she understands now that this is the right group for her – and I’ll do my part, drive her there.

She is so close to making Sectionals in several events. I think she finally understands it is no longer a matter of IF. It’s just a WHEN. And as soon as she makes it, it will be all but a forgotten memory. All the tears and failed attempts – she will have those sectionals cuts. And then will want Junior Nationals…I foresee many more meetings.

My husband is an amazing swim dad. I’m the vocal one and he doesn’t get enough credit. I can rent him out if you need some good advice, I have some expensive suits to buy.

As we approach our spring Championship meet things are quieting down a little. The kids are practicing hard and we haven’t been doing a lot of meets. My girls have all been pretty worn out and have enjoyed their free time just relaxing at home. Mother Nature has been on their side and they have enjoyed several days off from school. They usually get up at the crack of noon on these days.

Our club just participated in the IM Xtreme meet, one that requires that you have a time in all of the events being swam. Due to some stupid planning, Grace did not get to swim the meet, having never swam the 200 breast. She was disappointed but ended up having a fun weekend hanging out with friends! Sophie also did not qualify, she hasn’t swam 100 breast yet. But she is also only 9! The 9-10 session on Sunday also happened to be during the Super Bowl. Who planned that? I was thrilled we didn’t have to go.

Sarah did exceptional at the meet. She got best times in all five events and added a few more JO cuts. I was especially pleased with her 100 fly – she can do fly but is very inconsistent with it. I filmed her race and my background commentary is awesome. It’s clear I was blown away. While it was odd to be at a meet with only one kid it was also nice. And by that I mean less exhausting.

PVS recently posted their top 20 by age group and event. To give you some idea how fast PVS is, Grace is “this close” to several sectionals cuts as a 13-14. And didn’t make the tops 20 in anything. I was actually a bit shocked. Her meet in January wasn’t a good one so her times go back to early November. Hope to see her on there soon. I was pleasantly surprised though to see that Sophie did make it! She was 18th for 9-10 in 100 fly!

The most exciting thing that has happened recently is that our practice pool just hosted Metros. Metros is a local high school competition that pits the private schools against the public. We live in Montgomery County, Maryland – a DC suburb. Don’t pity the poor public school kids, most of them drive better cars than I do! To give you some idea how competitive swimming is in our area our high school kids get to compete with the likes of Katie Ledecky.

Our practices were cancelled all weekend due to the meet. And being the crazy swim family that we are, we went to the pool anyways! The weekend was filled with some amazing swimming. The high school Grace will go to next year is not a notoriously good swim team but they won divisionals this year and moved up a division. It was fun to cheer on our friends. On Friday night we got to see Katie crush the National Record in the 500 free prelims. Several meet records were broken and it was a weekend of great swimming.

Swim meets are notoriously boring. Metros is super exciting. Kids are allowed on deck and the cheering is what you would expect at a football game. Katie is a complete class act and signs autographs before and after her races. The little kids all go to bed at night with stars in their eyes and dreams of big things after meeting her.

The best part of the meet though was on the way home. Grace said “I’m looking forward to swimming at Metro’s next year”. Ah yes. She sees herself swimming next year. I see her doing real well next year at the meet. Fingers crossed.